Ok, so I'm going to ask a very stupid question :oops: Every time I see one of those Rolex vidoes, specifically the cross country portion of the event, I see horses with this white soapy looking stuff on their front legs, like in the pics below...what is that stuff? Is that something they put on the horse's legs for protection, or is that actually sweat (*I read somewhere that horses produce a white lather protein in their sweat*)?

It is a form of grease. It is used for Mid to Upper Levels - what it is meant for is when and if the horse hits one of those unforgiving fences, they slick and slide over the obstible, instead of the obsticle gashing the skin and legs up.

Hoofprints in the Sand

08-27-2009 08:55 PM

AHA!!! THANK YOU! Finally the answer :-) Someone suggested to me sometime that it was their sweat if they have certain proteins in their diet or something, but it seemed way too uniform to be sweat! I always saw it just on the legs on every horse it seemed! Now it makes sense ;-)

7Ponies

08-28-2009 12:42 AM

Cool. Learn something new every day!!

smrobs

08-28-2009 01:10 AM

^^ Indeed. I always kinda wondered that myself. I know that if a horse lathers from sweat, it will usually be on the neck and between the back legs/in the butt crack but that stuff always made me go :? hmmmmm.

Hoofprints in the Sand

08-28-2009 07:46 AM

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who wondered and didn't know!! ;-)

Jillyann

08-28-2009 11:43 AM

I always thought it was some form of joint lotion. Like Bengay cream for humans! Wow, was I wrong! lol

Hoofprints in the Sand

08-28-2009 01:07 PM

Jillyann that was the other thing I used to think it was too!!! :-)

Jillyann

08-28-2009 01:09 PM

Haha, Cause thats the only thing that really made sense to me I guess! lol

dressagebelle

08-28-2009 03:50 PM

Ya, when I first started pony club, one of the things we talked about was jumping, and cross country and stuff, and that came up in the conversations, and we were told that a lot of people actually use crisco which I thought was quite funny. I do remember watching the rolex one year, and one of the first jump combos was 3 huge I believe plastic barrels laying on their sides as bounces, and every horse that jumped them did slide both the front and back legs up and over the barrels which gave me a really good idea of how useful that stuff really is. Made it seem a lot less weird that they used it.